Hit Man – Review

Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 55 minutes, Director – Richard Linklater

When not playing the part of a university professor, Gary (Glen Powell) works for the police, luring in criminals by pretending to be a hit man, however his worlds begin to collide when he starts a relationship with a woman (Adria Arjona) who tries to hire him.

Amongst his more comedic work Richard Linklater rarely seems to have neared the territory of an out-and-out comedy. He’s long held his humour in a restrained indie vein, School Of Rock aside, coming through in a more natural or dead-pan nature depending on the tone of the film. His latest, Hit Man, which sees Linklater return to Netflix, who let his previous film Apollo 10 1/2 go unseen with no marketing or push whatsoever, frequently feels just a dash of wackiness away from being a broader comedy from the writer-director.

As it is there are a good handful of chuckles throughout the almost 2-hour run-time as the various lives and identities of Gary Johnson (Glen Powell – who serves as co-writer alongside Linklater) begin to clash right in front of him. Yet, as the bird-watching university professor moonlighting as a fake hit man luring in suspects for the police falls in with a woman who tries to hire him, Adria Arjona’s Madison, you can feel the comedy wanting to stretch out more and simply be louder, and perhaps more frequent. Particularly when we see Powell running through the various identities that Gary presumes when working for the police, analysing the Facebook profiles of those who believe they’re hiring him for a hit job and working out which characters would suit them best.

When taking a glimpse at multiple personas the sequences are faster than the otherwise extended conversational scenes set in diners where Gary gains the trust of the soon-to-be-arrested suspect, he just needs them to hand the money over. There’s a good deal to like about these brief montage-like moments, particularly Powell’s performance helping to bring the humour, and occasional satirical edges to the personas Gary puts across, through. Yet, the figure he plays into most is that of suave and romantic Ron, the person Madison believes him to be during their various hook-ups and eventual dates.

While avoiding feeling overstuffed, the general outline of Hit Man is effectively simplistic, there’s no denying that it feels overlong at just under 2 hours. It’s as the relationship arc truly takes form, before more elements from Gary’s worlds truly come crashing in to it and he risks having to tell Madison the truth about who he really is, and not just the fact that he drives an old Honda Civic. When humour does arise from these scenarios it often feels restrained and held back from what it could be, as if the joke could be taken further, despite the strength of Powell’s performance bringing through a good deal in the patches that we do get.

Instead, dialogue to push character and then narrative appears to be the focus, and Linklater certainly provides some wonderfully written scenes here. The opening stages in particular bring forward just how the central character adapts almost immediately to a situation on his first job as we see his first time playing hit man unfold in almost real time when he’s subbed in at the last minute. While not everything quite takes off or has the engaging nature of these more detailed moments for the central character there’s an overall likable nature to the film as a whole, even if you do wish that it would push itself a bit more and play into the laughs a bit more, like it seems to want to do.

While there are some really well written character-based scenes, and Glen Powell helps push the humour with a strong performance for each of the central character’s personas, Hit Man suffers from holding itself back when it comes to the comedy which it feels it wants to have more of, but feels consistently restrained.